Ryan Joyce through to second round of Belgian Darts Open after Andrew Gilding win, Berry van Peer sees off Daniel Klose

Ryan Joyce is through to the second round of the Belgian Darts Open after a 6-3 victory over Andrew Gilding. It is the first European Tour event of the year, which features a new qualifying format. Both players are in the field based on their ProTour Order of Merit ranking.

The first seven legs of the match all went on throw, but 'Relentless' managed to find that crucial break of throw to make it 5-3 and effectively kill the tie. Gilding reached the final of this event in 2022, which kicked him on to achieve his UK Open success a few months later.

He left Minehead in disappointing fashion last weekend as he was thrashed by Peter Wright and it was a similarly convincing defeat in Wieze. Joyce will face the man who beat Gilding in that final two years ago, Dave Chisnall, tomorrow evening.

In the first match of the afternoon, Berry van Peer got the better of Daniel Klose 6-3. It was a good performance from the Dutchman, who started with legs of 13, 13 and 14 darts to go into a 4-1 and threatened to run away with it, but Klose kept within distance with checkouts of 82 and 64 to cut the deficit to just one.

The German then missed a dart to make the game a best of three, with van Peer comfortably seeing out the next two legs to become the first winner on the Euro Tour in 2024. 'Bionic' will now play Jonny Clayton in the second round on Saturday afternoon.